Joe remembered the MI6 man who’d been briefing him in European politics only the day before. Tall, sandy-haired and courteous, he’d been struggling, Joe sensed, to keep his alarm hidden under his outer shell of easy confidence. An ex-soldier like Joe, he’d sensed a sympathetic understanding and divulged more than he ought to have. And Joe was seeing here in Armitage the same unfocussed, dawning horror, hearing the same urgent need to inform and warn. Two Cassandras in as many days plucking at his sleeve and demanding that he listen to their blood-chilling message.

“And your agent believed him?” Armitage asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, he did. I wouldn’t myself, but many do,” Joe replied lightly.

“Well, thank the Lord someone’s taking Hitler seriously. You should replay those words. They’re not the words of a maniac. Examine the meaning. ‘German Empire.’ There’s a million deaths in those two words. Such an empire would cover the whole of Europe. Bye bye France, Poland, Holland and anyone else who gets in his way. Knocked out. Italy, Austria and other satellites, gobbled up. The British? A tougher nut to crack. And it’s thought he has a sneaking admiration for the Anglo-Saxons. First cousins to the Prussians, most of them, he reckons. Though he’s got that wrong. You try feeding that idea to a Cockney sparrer and hear what he says!”

“We might expect him to try to do a deal?”

“He might try it on. Wouldn’t work. Your politicians, your aristocracy, your businessmen, plus a few nutcases might be showing him favour, but they’ll never convince the millions of ordinary folk that there’s any good can come out of an alliance with Germany.”

“The vote’s in the hands of a mass of people who still say, ‘Did my husband, my son, my uncle Alfred die in vain?’ ” Joe agreed. “We hate the French and I think we hate the Germans more. But it’s the American aspect of all this that’s got you in a lather, isn’t it, Bill?”

“Right. The American Empire. That’s the pivot.”

Pivot? An echo of his conversation with Kingstone came back to trouble Joe.

“Huge German immigrant population in the States. Considerable sympathies for the old country and its post-war sufferings under the British boot.” Armitage was talking fast now, eyes flitting occasionally to the door. “All stridently anti-Communist. In fact, they have an affinity with Herr Hitler. Brown-shirt brigades have started marching through the streets of New York—so far unchallenged. And, running the country are politicians and money-makers who, if they’re even aware the British exist, either discount or loathe them. Many admire the control and order the new breed of right-wing dictators in Europe is exercising. ‘Just what we need,’ they’re saying, ‘a touch of the Mussolinis. Get the trains running! Build those autobahns! Fix the economy!’ ”

“It’s no secret that the Americans already consider themselves the supreme world power. Perhaps they’ll be gracious enough to take on some of the onerous duties that go with the title? Take a bit of weight off our shoulders?” Joe suggested, deliberately to provoke a revealing response. “Always supposing they don’t just pull the eiderdown over their ears when the guns start banging and retreat into isolationism again.”

Armitage was grim. “Don’t scoff! Isolationism may be the best you can hope for. Hasn’t it occurred to you that if the US were to come out in favour of—or at the very least, fail to condemn—German expansion, this little island, for all its naval strength, will be caught like a walnut in a pair of nutcrackers? Hitler will use the States to help him bring down Britain. And the States will use Hitler to the same end. And then what?”

Joe shuddered theatrically. “My God! We could well end up seeing you as puppet Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Bill, in a client state. I wonder what you’ll call it? The Forty-Ninth State of the USA or Neue Deutschland? Let’s not pursue that thought. Yet.”

“Do you ever stop arsing about, man?” For an uncomfortable moment Joe had the feeling that Armitage was going to reach out, take hold of him by the shoulders and shake him. The sergeant displaced his anger by kicking a hole in a Claridge’s wastepaper basket. “It’s more than a thought. It’s a plan and it’s being worked on. Some of the planners will be sitting smirking around that conference table next week. Working towards our … your destruction. The buggers are right here in London. Sipping their Earl Grey from china cups in swish hotels. Honoured guests. Copper-bottomed reputations on the world stage. And the one man who can make a difference—cast his weight on one side or the other—is …”

“Right here, under our joint care, Bill? I had realised.”

“I hope you’re armed with something a bit more effective than a screwdriver, Captain. At this darned conference—this free-for-all—he’ll be rubbing shoulders with every villain in Europe and beyond that. It may not come to assassination—he’s more valuable on his two feet and reporting back to the president. He gets listened to. He’s a fair-minded man. But he’s a conduit. If he returns, primed, to tell Roosevelt what he already is disposed to hear—that Britain’s not worth his support, that it’s a busted flush, a treacherous, vindictive, self-glorifying bastard of a country—well, support, if any is coming, will go to Germany.”

Joe cleared his throat. “It’s going to be a long, sweaty month, Bill. I’ve heard you. And understood.” He felt a sudden rush of disgust with undercover skirmishings, dubious allegiances and threats of daggers in the back. Impatience broke through as he spoke briskly: “Bill! We’re not politicians, we’re not spies, we’re policemen! Let’s do what we’re trained to do. It’s all we can do. And we can start by remembering why we’re here. To protect that powerful and, I believe, well-intentioned man downstairs. A man I can respect. I liked him.” He strolled to the window. “How active is our bird? Could he manage that fire escape if it came to a sudden exit?”

“No problem there! He’s as spry as a mountain goat. Fists like cured hams and he knows how to use them. I wouldn’t tangle with him.”

“Weaknesses? I like to know where a man keeps his Achilles heel.”

Armitage thought for a moment then jerked his head at the next room. “There’s only one. Her, next door.”

“The ballet dancer?”

“She makes him less than he is. She reduces him to a twitching wreck. It’s pathetic. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth. Well, he does. Would marry her tomorrow, he says, but she won’t oblige. Taking little thing but I wouldn’t trust her far.” He flicked a glance at Joe and added carefully, “Russian’s her first language. Born in St. Petersburg, she claims. She doesn’t know I speak it and I’m keeping that quiet.”

“Very wise,” said Joe. “Shall we cast an eye over her billet? I think we should get to know this lady who has the attention of the man who has the ear of the president who has his finger on the trigger of the gun that’s pointed at our head.”

They entered another opulent space, the twin of the suite they had just left. Joe stood for a moment looking around for and not seeing signs of occupancy.

“Has she been here?” Joe asked.

“Her things are in the cupboards,” Armitage said, throwing open a wardrobe. “Her maid unpacked for her.”

“Maid? Is she on the premises?”

“She has a room somewhere on an upper floor. Julia’s not seen her either. I checked before breakfast.”

“Julia?”

“Julia Ivanova. The maid. She’s not some gaga old biddy—she’s as smart as a whip and pretty as a picture. If you like Russian looks. Dark, high cheekbones, suffering Madonna expression.”

“And where is she at the moment, this icon?”

“Up in her room, I expect. They’re as thick as thieves, I’d say. You ought to talk to her.”